50 Shades and Blurred Lines Part 7
by CockEyedGopher
Summary: Just when there's a "Happily Ever After" - or so it seems - sometimes Life has other plans...


Chapter 51

At six p.m., Ana was nervous.

By eight, she was more concerned, calling his phone. There was no answer.

By ten she was calling security, because she figured if anyone would know his whereabouts, it would be them; although, as they reminded her, sometimes he told them to get lost and went gallivanting around the city on his own; you can only go with constant supervision for so long before you start to go batty.

They had no clue where he was. At this point, Ana was frantic, calling his phone repeatedly, and when she still came up empty-handed, she called his parents, crying; and then, Dr. Flynn. Only after his mother called him, did Christian answer, sounding rather unlike himself and at that point his mother started to get upset herself, threatening to call the police, worried that he'd gotten into some kind of trouble.

"Mom, I'm fine. I just had a few drinks. Tell Ana I'm okay, I've just gone away for a few days, I'll be back," he insisted. When asked exactly where he was, he wouldn't say, and eventually his mother sussed out that it was more about needing some breathing room or time to process some things on his own, than about any harm having come to him. She tried to get him to go into what was clearly bothering him, but he refused, in a tone that made it clear that he loved her, and respected her, but it wasn't up for discussion.

He wouldn't speak to anyone else; all other incoming calls went unanswered.

Dr Flynn didn't get wind of what was going on until the next morning, when he checked his messages and heard Ana weeping on the other end, almost incoherent. "...can't...Christian...gone", is all he could make out of the steady gale of sobs. Flynn tried Grey's phone himself; and...after trying for about half an hour with no response, he called the Grey residence for an update. What Ana told him, reassured him, but not much, and he had his own suspicions about what caused Christian's disappearance.

He'd known Grey long enough that he'd started to learn from him, and took a page from his book, going to the computer and looking up all the women named Hope in the area on Google. There weren't many, and only one fit the general age range he was looking for.

Chapter 52

The info was very-recently outdated he found out from a neighbor that was a little too talkative, after they spotted him hovering around the front door of her old apartment. He exploited their loose-lipped tendencies.

"Did she mention where she was moving to?"

"An exact address, no, in fact she didn't say anything but some big guy was with her, tugging her down the hall by the arm, kinda bossy asshole-type, I heard him say something about Caron Drive."

In spite of everything, Flynn had to chuckle, because he knew exactly who the asshole was; and if he knew Caron Drive like he thought he did, he knew there was only one likely place that capsizing patient took his captor to.

Flynn thanked the neighbor profusely, so much so that the guy was genuinely confused, then proud, sticking his chest out and beaming as he watched the good doc rush out the apartment entrance.

Chapter 53

In the condo lobby, he was standing at the front desk speaking to the staff, asking to speak to someone from Mr Grey's unit. Apparently that was the wrong thing to ask, because a few minutes later half of Christian's secondary security team was surrounding Flynn, glaring at him suspiciously. They had no idea who he was; only the primary security team escorted Grey to his therapy appointments, and the mention of Hope, someone this strange man shouldnt' even know about, _really_ set them off.

It was in the middle of them telling him they had no idea who any Hope Murphy was, and how he needed to leave the premises, that he noticed a small teenage boy standing on the outskirts, watching him curiously.

After a few moments, the boy stepped forward and wriggled his way in between some of the bodyguards, which seemed to cause more of a ruckus, a few of them stepping in front of him, presumably to protect him from the stranger.

That's when it hit him.

"Hope?" He asked, stunned.

She lifted her chin in the air just slightly, defiant; wary, sidestepping the question, just in case. "Who are you?".

Chapter 54

Hope had taken a day off from class to clear some of her stuff out of the condo; she was half-done moving into a special dorm on-campus for adult members of the student body. Originally there hadn't been any openings available, but someone else's bad choices became her good fortune - they'd failed a few exams after slacking off a few times too many, and were summarily booted out of school, freeing up a space for her.

She saw the exchange happening with the doctor right from the beginning and was hiding off safely out of view until it persisted for quite a while, and that piqued her curiosity and made her come forward to see just what the hell was going on.

Now she was sitting at a nearby diner, across from Flynn. She'd insisted on accepting his offer to discuss things over lunch with him, even though the guards tried to stop her from going. Finally, seeing that she was determined to anyway whether they wanted it or not, they insisted on sending a few with her. Three seemed like overkill to Flynn but they wouldn't have it any other way and sat at a table right next to their booth, gobbling down burgers and fries and periodically giving the doc the evil eye.

Hope was...not what he'd expected. At all. She sat in front of him, about the size of a tall fifth grader, which means she couldn't have been more than about five feet. Sloppy black jogging pants on, with a giant oversized grey hoodie - the top portion of which, she hadn't even bothered to pull off her head; when she strolled in the dinner initially the workers kept eyeballing her like they thought she'd come in to steal free drinks from the soda machine. She looked like a tiny, bony brown alien - with giant dark eyes. Cute, but in a very odd way that could be construed as ugly, like a Treasure Troll doll.

She hadn't talked much, either and the few comments she did make were very vague and cagey. She still didn't seem to believe anything he was telling her about being Christian's therapist, or his disappearance, any of those things.

Exasperated, Flynn realized he wasn't getting anywhere with her, and only had so much time left to convince. He pulled out his phone while Hope eyed him skeptically, and fired off a text message to Christian, briefly outlining the situation, hoping he'd answer.

They'd made their way through most of their burgers and half of their fries, and Flynn was getting antsy, when Hope's phone went off.

**CHRISTIAN (12:30 PM) :**

**Tell Flynn I said Hi.**

**I miss you.**

Chapter 55

**CHRISTIAN (12:35 PM) :**

**I think you might've been right after all, but I don't want to go into it. Not right now. I couldn't anyway even if I wanted to; my flight is about to take off. **

**Tell her everything.**

Chapter 56

Flynn showed her the text message and smiled at her as if to say "_Now_ do you believe me?".

Hope smiled sheepishly. "Well I didn't know you from a hole in the wall."

Flynn nodded, "I understand, I understand. There's no problem. I have a lot to tell you, how much time do you have free?"

"As much as it takes."

Chapter 57

An hour later, Hope still sat across from Flynn, this time at the kitchen table in the condo, speechless.

"Him trying to get you to sign that blasted thing was him trying to hold onto you because he could see he was losing you." Flynn said finally. "I think the first time you left it triggered his memories of his mother and setback his progress; the ironic part is, what he did ultimately pushed you further away."

Hope looked at him helplessly.

"I'll keep trying to reach him and get through to him. But as soon as he contacts you again - and he will - you need to sit down and have a long talk with one another."

Flynn, as always, stating the obvious.


End file.
